


Cyclic

by galpalaven



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Eletania, Friendship, Gen, Mass Effect 1, Prothean Beacon, Prothean Ruins, Prothean Sphere, also liara is very hard to write by the way, only sort of, sun and liara finally have a reason to be friends god bless, that weird-ass vision on Eletania, theres the beginnings of shakarian if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 11:58:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11713962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galpalaven/pseuds/galpalaven
Summary: "How long did they study the primitive humans, observing them, analyzing the results at their base on Mars? And what, if anything, did they learn from us?"In which Shepard touches yet another Prothean artifact and sees yet another crazy vision. At least this time it's notReapers.





	Cyclic

**Author's Note:**

> I found the weird Prothean artifact and weird memory thing for the first time and Had To Write It.

“Strange readings ahead,” came Liara’s voice from the back of the Mako. 

“I see ‘em,” Shepard answered, wincing as the rover bounced as she drove over the uneven terrain. The holographic display of the rough, misshapen ground ahead of them flickered as she hit a particularly hard bump, and quietly, she heard Garrus grumble something under his breath. _Damn backseat driver_ —her proactive driving had saved them from more thresher maw nests than she could count, now, and he could suck it up.

“Will we be stopping to check it out, Commander?”

“Did we _not_ just spend _four hours_ chasing _pyjaks,_ Liara? Why _wouldn’t_ we stop to check out another weird blip on the map?” Garrus drawled sarcastically, and Shepard rolled her eyes.

“Hey, it’s not like we can do anything else until after Pressly is out of quarantine. Can’t go chasing rogue Spectres without our chief navigator.”

“…Fair point.”

Liara cleared her throat, and Shepard bit at the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning. “ _Anyway_ ,” she began tersely, “I can’t be certain, but I think we might be coming up on—“

“—Prothean ruins,” Shepard finished for her a little breathlessly, watching the strange structure rise out of the ground as they reached the top of a hill. For a brief moment, she wished the Mako’s external cameras hadn’t been shot last drop they did, that they could boot up the virtual windows instead of relying on the virtual terrain interface. What a sight the structure must have made, tall and proud against the green landscape and the night sky.

Shepard pulled the Mako up as close as she dared, watching the image of the ruins flicker and shimmer with some kind of interference as she put the rover into park. Liara’s blue profile came into her peripheral after a minute, leaning closer to get a look at the Mako’s readings.

“How strange…” she murmured, as Sun unbuckled and slid down a little in her seat, tilting her head to look back at the turian in the back seat.

“You gonna be able to stand getting out and checking this out, Big Guy? Or do you want to wait in the car?”

He shot her a mock offended look that faded in an instant as he flicked his mandibles at her in a grin. “I’m right behind you, _Commander_ ,” he replied, tilting his head at her as he reached down to fasten his helmet on.

The next few minutes were a blur, as they all fixed their helmets and armor in preparation to step out into the toxic air of Eletania. Shepard stepped out first, taking a few slow steps and looking up at the sky—at the purplish-blue haze of night, the rings cutting across the sky as the moon peeked out from behind the clouds. They’d been on Eletania for several hours now, but she was pretty sure she’d never get tired of looking at alien skies, no matter how many times she saw them. The first time she went to Earth, so long ago now, she’d ended up staring at the sky for so long she fell asleep on the balcony of their hotel her family had been staying at.

“ _By the Goddess_ ,” she heard Liara gasp after a moment, distracting her, and she turned curiously to find the asari stopped just in front of the Mako, staring at the ruins on the other side of the rover.

Curious, Shepard and Garrus (who’d hung back, for some reason) followed her around the side of the Mako.

Tall and strange, the tower-like object rose out of the landscape, dark and wrong against the rolling green around it. But the towering bits weren’t what Liara was looking at, Shepard realized after another second—it was the strange, silvery sphere floating in the center of some kind of round platform that had her attention. The sight of it tickled something in the back of Shepard’s mind, like the wisp of a memory, burning just out of reach, and dazedly she started down the hill towards the strange artifact.

It took Shepard another solid twenty seconds to realize that Liara had started rambling the second they’d started moving towards the ruins.

“—and I’ll need samples, _Goddess_ , do you think we brought enough equipment for this? Can we mark this on the map so I can have a team come back and study it further? What do you suppose that sphere is? What’s it made of? How can I—?”

By the time Shepard reached the platform, she’d already begun tuning the asari out. It wasn’t that she didn’t find this stuff _interesting_ —of course she did, but there was just something very odd about this artifact. It drew her in, a strange sort of hum in the air that she somehow felt even through her breather helmet. It pulsed and pulled and before she really made any conscious thought to do so, she found herself standing in front of the strange silver orb, tilting her head up at where it hung motionlessly in the air.

“It doesn’t even look _real_ ,” Garrus’s voice said quietly into her ear through her comm, making her jolt a little. She had almost forgotten he was there.

She hummed her agreement as the turian hovered a few feet away, apparently not drawn in quite like she was. Her eyes ran over the surface curiously, until they caught on a small, irregular slot on the underside of the sphere, almost hidden away. The shape was—strangely familiar. What—?

“It kind of looks like that thing the Consort gave you on the Citadel,” Garrus mumbled, apparently having noticed the same thing she did. “Did you keep that?”

“I did.” It was hanging around her neck, in fact. Liara was on the other side of the sphere, taking measurements with her scanner, as Shepard turned towards Garrus. “I need to open my suit. Please make sure I don’t die.”

She couldn’t see his face, but the way he immediately slid his sniper rifle back onto his back and held nervous hands in front of her as she reached for her helmet spoke volumes of his nerves, of how seriously he took that command. She took a deep, slow breath, holding it as she unlatched her helmet, trying not to listen to the whoosh of the clean air leaving the suit as she pulled it away and handed it to him. Carefully, as quickly as she could, she reached into the top of her armor, unzipping her under-suit and pulling the strange little trinket out from where it hung around her neck.

Sun traded Garrus the necklace for her helmet, shoving it back over her head as her chest was starting to burn from the lack of air, gasping greedily when she hit the airlock and clean air flooded back into the helmet.

“Okay?” Garrus asked, and she couldn’t see his face, but if she didn’t know better she’d say he sounded worried.

“Okay,” Shepard replied, smiling even though he couldn’t see. He handed her back the necklace as she sighed, and Liara drifted back around towards where she was standing on one side of the orb.

“What is that?” she asked quietly.

Shepard shrugged. “Dunno, but it kind of looks like it’d fit into that little slot, doesn’t it?”

“…Shepard, as a professional, I have to voice my concern about sticking strange objects into Prothean artifacts that we know nothing about, while we are alone on an uncharted world with no one to help in the immediate vicinity should something terrible happen.”

“…but?”

Liara chuckled, bumping her elbow against Shepard’s arm almost affectionately. “But you’re right, it does appear to be made to be inserted into that little slot.”

Sun looked up at Liara then, making meaningful eye contact for a solid thirty seconds, before shrugging. “For science?”

“Oh, don’t—!”

Ignoring Dr. T’Soni entirely, Shepard shook her head and placed the trinket into the slot…and almost immediately, the ball exploded into a brilliant flash of white light, disorienting as it momentarily blinded her.

 

* * *

_Slowly, her senses return as she wakes from a deep sleep. First sound, then feeling, then sight as she blinks up at her surroundings, dazed. She's alone in the forest, but the trees nearby are familiar enough. She is not far from the caves she shares with the others of her tribe, it would seem, even if she has no memory of how she reached this place. There is a pain and a small lump in the back of her head, as if a chip of flint has been forced under the surface of the skin. What—?_

_Leaning on her bone-tipped spear for support, she rises to her feet, shaky but mostly alright. She feels strange and off, like she’s forgotten something important. A sound draws her attention upwards, where a strange creature hovers high above her. It is unlike the birds she hunts by the lake’s edge—it has no head and no wings, yet somehow it flies. It is a beast of shining silver; hanging motionless in the sky like a cloud. She senses it is watching her, studying her. There is a strange humming in the air, tightening something deep in her chest._

_Raising a hairy fist, she shakes her spear at it in anger—anger and fear—and the creature rises up until it disappears from view. With a satisfied grunt, she makes her way back to her caves and the rest of the tribe. The elders give her a strange look when she returns, but she has no way to explain what she has seen._

_So it is repressed, and shoved aside. A strange encounter for a strange day, and nothing more._

_After, she falls into the familiar patterns of life—the hunt for food, the struggle to claim and keep a mate, the battles against other tribes that would claim her territory. Days roll into nights and back into days. It should have been easy to forget, to leave behind, but the creature haunts her all the same. Each time she rises from sleep, there is the sensation that she is not alone; that some “other” is with her, sharing all she sees, hears, and feels. At these times, her hand goes to the strange lump at the back of her skull and she remembers the silver creature in the sky._

_The air grows colder, winter falls. She must range farther for food, clutching the furs tight against her to ward off the chill. It is on one of these long hunts that the strange bird returns. She hears it before she sees it, its call a deafening roar as it descends from above, swooping down on her. A single great eye opens on the underbelly, a glowing red orb. She tries to run, but a single finger of red light extends from the eye and engulfs her, and all goes black again._

 

* * *

“— _mander. Shepard._ Shepard!”

Shepard gasped, blinking up at an unfamiliar sky, momentarily disoriented until she recognized her companions standing over her—and the Prothean artifact looming over her, undamaged and ominous in its stillness. Watching her, even now.

_Eletania,_ she thought, shaking her head and letting her eyes drift shut again. _I’m Commander Sun Shepard, and we’re on the planet Eletania._

Together, Liara and Garrus reached down and hauled her to her feet, Garrus supporting most of her weight when she swayed unsteadily, dizzy at the change of position. Grasping his hand tightly with one of hers, she gritted her teeth and tried to slow her breathing as Liara began to speak again.

“There was a flash of light,” she was saying softly, one small hand gently resting on Shepard’s back as she tried to assess her condition beneath the helmet, “and you just sort of—toppled over.”

“Are you okay, Shepard?” Garrus asked, voice just as quiet, just as worried, as he squeezed her hand.

Shepard found she couldn’t answer right away, mind racing, wondering at _what the fuck_ that vision just was. The memories of a Cro-Magnon hunter, captured by an implanted Prothean data recorder? Her mind flashed back to her childhood, to her father bent over strange symbols and documents in his study, to the timeline she could _still_ see tracing all the way around the room as her father tried to put all the pieces together. How long did they study the primitive humans, observing them, analyzing the results at their base on Mars? 

_And what,_ she wondered dazedly, _if anything, did they learn from us?_

“I’m fine,” she heard herself reply distantly, realizing that all she really wanted was to get back onto the Normandy and lie down. “Forget about it.”

Garrus and Liara exchanged a look. Shepard would have winced if she had the energy for it.

“Not likely,” Garrus drawled, just as Liara shook her head and said, “ _No_.”

Arguing with either of them took more effort than it was worth, so Sun just nodded, and let them lead her back to the Mako, and eventually back to the Normandy itself.

* * *

 

“Well, Commander,” Dr. Chakwas said, stepping closer to shine a little light in either of her eyes, “I think I’m going to have to put my foot down and insist that you _stop_ touching strange Prothean artifacts without proper protection and preparation.”

Sun smiled a little, even through the pounding in her head. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“ _Shepard_ ,” was all the doctor said, exasperated, but it was enough to pull a laugh from her.

“Alright, alright, Doc,” she said over a laugh, raising her hands in mock surrender. “I’ll be more careful. Captain’s honor.”

Chakwas nodded with a sigh, apparently satisfied with that response. She patted Shepard on the shoulder, squeezing her arm gently to steady her as Shepard slid off the edge of her bed. The med bay was currently off limits, what with Pressly and his chicken pox, so Chakwas had made a special trip to the Captain’s Cabin to make sure Shepard wasn’t dying or infected or—you know, anything else one might expect a strange alien artifact could do to a person, even through armor.

“I should go tell Liara and Garrus that I’m okay,” Shepard mumbled, rubbing roughly at her face. They’d both been pretty adamant about staying, even when Dr. Chakwas said she’d have to perform a pretty thorough physical as she ushered them out of the room.

“I don’t think so, Commander. You need rest. I’ll make sure to pass the message along,” she said, stepping in Shepard’s way when she tried to step around her anyway, hands on her shoulders and a stern look in her eye. “We’re stuck in this system for another two days, at least. You’ll have plenty of time to reassure them.”

Sun considered arguing briefly, but the thought of wandering all the way around the ship to go and talk to everyone sapped whatever energy she had left from her muscles, and she nodded, exhausted. “Alright. I’ll just go to bed then.”

“Good,” Chakwas responded, nodding. “Goodnight, Commander.”

“Night, Doctor.”

And that was that, until the door slid open to reveal an anxious asari waiting just outside, and a turian just behind her.

They both straightened at the sight of the door opening, Liara pausing in her apparent pacing to fiddle nervously with her fingers, Garrus straightening out of his usual slouch to nervously dart his gaze between the doctor and Shepard.

“Good news,” Sun began dryly, “Doc says I’m _not_ pregnant with some sort of soul-sucking, robot-alien spawn.”

Liara and Garrus shared another look, and Sun suddenly remembered that she wasn’t, in fact, talking to humans. Of course _Alien_ jokes went right over their heads.

“…I’m fine. The artifact didn’t do any permanent damage,” she tried again, and that managed to relax her companions a little.

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Liara asked, looking to Chakwas now. 

The doctor laughed warmly, shaking her head. “Just make sure she doesn’t do that again, next time you come across any strange ruins.”

“Of course!” Liara answered, just as Garrus laughed a little and said, “ _Right_. We’ll be sure to try and do that.”

Everyone fell silent for a few beats, staring at each other, before Dr. Chakwas cleared her throat, stepping out of the room and heading back towards the med bay. “If you’ll all excuse me, I have another patient to tend to for the night. Don’t push yourself, Shepard.”

Sun leaned against the doorway, crossing her arms and flinching a little as she called her agreement at the doctor’s retreating form. She looked back over at her companions, where they stood looking at her like they thought she was about to topple over again. She blinked at them, smiling a little as she said, “I really am gonna be okay, guys. Relax.”

Liara didn’t look convinced, and neither did Garrus, but he nodded anyway, reaching up to scratch at his neck.

“If you say so, Shepard. I’m going to—go work on the Mako. See if I can’t get the virtual window display recalibrated and working again. You need anything, just call, alright?”

“Sure thing, Big Guy,” Sun hummed, smiling as warmly as she could as he gave her a lopsided grin, mock saluting before wandering off towards the elevator, leaving Shepard and Liara alone in the mess hall. 

A long, pregnant pause followed the sudden emptiness of the room, and Liara eventually opened her mouth to say something probably about leaving, but Sun interrupted her. “Actually, I kind of—wanted to talk to you, if you don’t mind, Liara.”

She blinked, mouth opening, obviously surprised by the thought, though Shepard wasn’t really sure what’s so surprising about that. She _had_ been trying to get to know everyone but, well…maybe she hadn’t known exactly what to talk to Liara about, lately.

“I had some questions about the Protheans,” Sun added, nodding towards the room behind her. She didn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea, but she also didn’t want many other people to know how utterly unsettled she was by what she’d seen when that orb had knocked her out.

“Oh. Yes, of course, I’ll answer to the best of my ability,” Liara said, still fidgeting with her fingers as she stepped past Shepard into the captain’s quarters. 

She stopped just inside the door, even as Sun hit the button to slide the door closed behind them, and Shepard had to gesture to the desk chair before she moved again. Her companion’s mind had apparently jumped straight down the gutter, and Shepard had to laugh a little as the asari settles stiffly into the chair, eyes everywhere but on Shepard.

“…I really do have questions about your research, Liara. If we could hang out in your little section of the med bay, we’d be over there, but unfortunately that entire area of the ship is under quarantine,” Sun said, throwing herself down on the thin mattress, tilting her head to look at her where she sat at the desk.

“Of course,” Liara stammered, smiling nervously. “I just—don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.”

Sun waved her hand at her dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. Anyone says anything to you and I’ll handle it, okay?”

Liara’s smile widened a little. “I don’t think that would have the kind of effect we would want, in that situation.”

“…okay, yeah, good point. It’s fine, though. We’ll be fine.”

They both laughed quietly, smiling, until Liara finally sighed and asked, “So, what sorts of questions did you have?”

Sun linked her hands together on her stomach, staring at one of the screws in the ceiling as she let out a slow, even breath. She could still feel the chill of the air on her skin, could almost feel the lump under the skin on the back of her head even though there wasn’t anything there. “I had another vision,” she began quietly, “after I collapsed.”

“Well, that’s not surprising,” Liara said in a voice that said it might have been a _little_ surprising, “considering what happened with the beacon. What did you see?”

“I was—I was on Earth, but before civilization really began. I’d wager to guess it was probably around 50,000 years ago. I saw the memories of a primitive human who’d been—kidnapped and experimented on, I guess, by the Protheans. I lived their life until they got captured by that weird silver orb. _Again_ , I guess.”

“That’s… _fascinating_. Did you happen to see any Protheans, by chance?”

Shepard thought about it for a minute, tilting her head and messing with her dog tags around her neck. “I don’t think so. It was just the weird sphere thing.” She sighed, ignoring the chill that tried to race down her spine at the thought that maybe that thing was still watching her now. “You know, my dad used to work on the Mars Archives.”

“ _Really?_  I thought you grew up on Mindoir,” Liara said, and then immediately began to stammer. “I—I mean, I—um—”

“I did,” Sun replied, stopping her before she could really get started rambling an explanation. It wasn’t a surprise when people knew her personal history anymore, especially not after the _first human Spectre_ thing. “I did grow up on Mindoir, but before the First Contact War, my dad was working on the Archives. He—gave up his job there when I was six to move us to Mindoir where he switched his studies to dark energy for some reason. I can still see his mess of an office on Mars sometimes if I think hard enough.”

“Do you know what he was studying?”

Shepard shook her head. “Not really. I tried looking it up a few years ago but it was all—”

“—classified,” Liara finished for her, and Shepard nodded again.

“Yeah. I want to say he was studying human history, though. Or—pre-history, human history, anyway.” Rolling onto her stomach, Sun propped her chin up on her crossed arms to look at Liara. “What is ancient asari history like? Did—Did the Protheans study your people, too?”

Liara shrugged, relaxing in her seat a little more, crossing her legs as she replied, “It’s possible, but we have no real proof. Nothing like the Mars Archives, anyway. There are— _patterns_ that we’ve observed that suggest the Protheans were interested in many of the Council races, and may have been monitoring them discreetly, but nothing with as much solid proof that the Protheans were studying our ancient ancestors until your people’s discovery on Mars.”

Shepard smiled a little, shaking her head. “It’s too bad our first contact experience wasn’t with the asari. Might not have been a war if we could have just offered up our Prothean find.”

“Yes,” Liara agreed quietly, “that…could have been handled better.”

“I was on Mars during the war,” Sun said, eyes unfocused on the edge of the table. “I stayed with my dad in the Archives while my mom went and fought the turians.” Eyes sliding closed, Shepard could almost see the little apartment-like complex she and her father lived in. She was just a toddler then, so she didn’t remember much, but she’d never forget his study. “He had this— _timeline_ that stretched all the way around his study in our living quarters. He’d stay in there for hours, trying to decipher the information from the Archives. All those symbols and documents and he barely slept when he thought he was close to figuring out more of their syntax.”

“…How old were you?”

Shepard snorted. “Two? Three by the time the Council stepped in.  I don’t think I’d remember as much if my dad hadn’t told me about how I used to keep him company while he worked. ” She paused, and then added, “He still refused to tell me what he’d been studying. Or why he quit.”

Silence fell over them then, and Shepard was starting to realize why the quietness of the engines bothered Tali so much. It was kind of uncomfortable to not hear _anything_ , in the quiet moments between missions and conversations. Squirming on top of her blankets, Sun cleared her throat and asked, “What made you want to study the Protheans?”

Liara sighed, looking away thoughtfully. “You know, I’m not entirely sure. For as long as I can remember, I’ve found history intriguing, and the stories of the Protheans we learned in school, of a civilization that spanned the known galaxy but then vanished without a trace 50,000 years ago—they were so fascinating that they captivated me. My entire life, I’ve dreamed of being the one to truly uncover what exactly happened to the Protheans, all that time ago.”

Sun smiled. “And here you are, doing just that.” 

Liara did nothing but smile sweetly, cheeks darkening in the lamplight, and Shepard found her thoughts wandering back to her vision on Eletania. It didn’t provide any clues about the Reapers, and apparently no one else had any proof of them beyond the beacon they’d found on Eden Prime. 50,000 years was such a long time for humanity—so long ago, before humans had moved beyond being nomadic hunters. Before the last Ice Age even— _40,000 years_ before the last Ice Age, in fact.

But that wasn’t as long ago for the asari, was it? Their society was tens of thousands of years ahead of humanity, and with each asari living 1,000 years, give or take…

“It’s strange that your people don’t have more information about the Protheans,” Shepard murmured after a bit. “Your society stretches back almost as far, doesn’t it? And with as long as you live, you’re not all that far removed from—what did you call it? The last cycle? At least not compared to us, anyway.”

“You would think, wouldn’t you?” Liara agreed, laughing softly. “The ancient asari did keep written records, but it’s all seeped in religious overtones. There _are_ parts that could, theoretically, be interpreted as contact with an alien civilization, if one were really looking for it, but that would be—"

“—kind of blasphemous?” 

“Yes. And even though our ancestors were certainly around in the last cycle, our current, modern civilization did not rise until around 30,000 years ago, and we didn’t find the Citadel until well after that. Prothean research didn’t truly blossom into a field of study until the Citadel, anyway.” She paused briefly and then, tilting her head, she added, “What did you mean by ‘as long as we live, we’re not all that far removed from the last cycle’?”

Sun grinned, shrugging. “My mom and I used to talk about stuff like that. We’d measure Earth time by mothers—she had me when she was about 25, so assuming my matrilineal line was fairly consistent, I’d be so-and-so number of mothers removed from say the building of the Great Pyramids or the last Ice Age. 50,000 years of asari is only around 50 generations, isn’t it? Since you all live to be about 1,000, generally?”

Liara blinked. “That’s…I’ve never thought of it like that. Though, typically asari don’t have children until they’re about 300, so that would make us around 70 mothers from the last cycle.” She tilted her head the other way. "Huh."

There was beat of silence, before Shepard got uncomfortable again. “Knowledge of our past will help us in our steps towards the future,” she sighed, and she could almost hear her father's voice as she recited the words. That had practically been her father’s catchphrase, as often as he used it to justify his work. 

Liara hummed softly. “Knowledge of the past may be the only thing that can protect us from another mass extinction event via giant, sentient robots.”

Shepard and Liara looked at each other for a moment, and Sun counted to 10 before they both collapsed into bitter giggles.

“Goddess, it sounds so fake.”

Sun buried her face in her arms. “Probably why the Council keeps treating me like I’m insane,” she grumbled, muffled.

“If it makes you feel any better, Shepard, the majority of the scientific community has been treating me like I’m insane for years now.”

She snorted. “It kind of does, actually. Thanks.”

“Of course," Liara said, still grinning. "Anytime.”

And though their conversation fizzled after that, both of them tired and a little giddy, Shepard felt a new sort of warmth settle into her chest—not only from having been able to talk about what she’d seen, but it was the familiar warmth of a budding friendship that her smiling well into the night, long after Liara had taken her leave. It was nice, and while she considered some other members of the crew friends, it had been a long, long time since she’d made many new friends, having isolated herself as she did after Akuze.

_Well_ , she thought as she began to drift to sleep, _at least now I know how to talk to her_. _No more of that awkward chitchat about asari reproduction._

_...Ever._

**Author's Note:**

> *slams my face into the keyboard* i hate finishing one-shots
> 
> at least liara and sun finally have some reason to be friends beyond "the game says so" hallelujah


End file.
